


Whenever I Close My Eyes I See Your Death

by Satirrian



Series: Status: Unstable [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Connor has an android dog named sofia, Dad Hank Anderson, Depression, Gen, Hank POV, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Game, connor cannot cook, hannor if you squint, references to Amanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 23:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15761526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satirrian/pseuds/Satirrian
Summary: When Connor spoke, it was word for word the exact same thing Hank had heard seven different times. “Since I was designed with a form of free will and independence, I have an overseeing program that communicates with me and holds a small amount of power over my actions. She is integrated fully into my software. She cannot be removed without killing me.”After the revolution, Connor and Hank try to move forward.[A short story taking place after the epilogue of The Novelist.]





	Whenever I Close My Eyes I See Your Death

**Author's Note:**

> This story is basically an epilogue for the epilogue of the Novelist because no one is here to stop me. 
> 
> You can read this independently from The Novelist - however you must know that Connor has an android dog named Sofia, and he was programmed to deviate from the beginning by CyberLife. 
> 
> In the epilogue we've learned that Amanda appears to him like a ghost, taunting and belittling him, a haunting and tortuous presence. If anyone is familiar with the television show Supernatural, imagine that Amanda is the character Lucifer and Connor has her trapped inside his mind forever.

Hank Anderson didn’t live alone anymore. He wished he’d forgotten what it was like to live alone. He remembered waking up at the asscrack of dawn and not moving for hours on end, staring up at a blank white ceiling and feeling nothing at all. Sometimes he wouldn’t sleep, but he would lie down and pretend to, because he had to pretend to.

If he had stopped pretending, maybe he would have become that man again, years ago—  that man that only saw his son at night, from 7 o’clock to his bedtime at 10 o’clock, and sometimes in the morning when he’d gotten up earlier than usual and ate breakfast with him. He didn’t want to become that man again, even if that man was a very good detective. He didn’t want to be a very good detective.

Hank Anderson didn’t live alone anymore, but a lot of things were still the same. His eyes were bloodshot when he stumbled out of bed, dry and grainy. He heard music coming from the kitchen. A soft jazz number, with a very slow beat.

When he got to the kitchen, he saw Connor, wearing a dark grey hoodie zipped all the way to the top, sitting on the countertop. He was glancing through the news on a tablet. The music came from Hank’s record player.

Hank didn’t want to say anything this early in the morning, but he felt like he had to. “You hate jazz,” he said, voice coming out like the barely intelligible grumble of a bear. He didn’t give a shit if Connor understood him. He pulled open the refrigerator and pulled out the pitcher of water. Without a word, Connor took out a glass from the cabinet above him and set it down next to him. Hank poured the water and put the pitcher back into the fridge. He picked up the glass and took a sip.

“You fucking hate jazz,” Hank said again, watching Connor carefully.

Connor glanced up at him. “You can turn it off.”

Hank scratched his beard and moved over to the record player in the living room. He turned it off. He wanted to yell at Connor to turn it off himself, but he didn’t.

Hank felt like it wasn’t one of his good days.

“Can I make you breakfast, Hank?” Connor called.

Hank walked back over and leaned against the island countertop across from him. Connor always wanted to make breakfast on his good days. He said it was fun. It wasn’t a lot of fun for Hank, that was sure. Maybe that was why the kid seemed to like it so much.

Hank still wasn’t sure that it was a good day.

“What’re you going to make?”

“Eggs,” Connor said, setting down the tablet on his knee. There was a recipe on it.

Hank furrowed his brow. “There’s a million ways you’re gonna fuck that up.”

Connor gave him a pleasant look. Hank could tell when Connor put on his expressions and when they were real. The fake ones always looked better, like a good actor putting on a convincing show. “Have some faith in me, will you?”

“Faith,” Hank scoffed. “In _your_ cooking ability? Hilarious.”

“No, I understand it,” Connor said. “I know how to do it.”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

“Then go on,” Hank gestured at the stove, like he was revealing a particularly amazing magic trick. “ _Cook some eggs_.”

“I will,” Connor said proudly, raising his chin. “And you’re going to love them.” It was a statement of fact.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Hank stayed where he was, leaning against the counter, while Connor slid off the countertop. He went to the fridge and hesitated, stopping his hand halfway before pulling it open. Hank frowned.

Hank knew a little bit about how androids liked to think. They couldn’t think on the spot. They had to think ahead, plot out their course, maximize it for efficiency or whatever the fuck else they did. Something made Connor hesitate, because Connor never hesitated. Not anymore.

Connor pulled out a cardboard container of eggs and asked, “Did you sleep well, Hank?”

Hank didn’t sleep. “Just peachy,” he said.

“That is good,” Connor said. He knew that Hank was lying. Hank watched the back of his head as he got out a frying pan, settling it onto the stove with a faint clink.

“What about you?” Hank asked. “Did you sleep well?”

Connor opened up the carton of eggs. “I don’t like the sleeping mod.”

“That’s fine,” Hank said. “Nobody said you gotta use it. Wish I had that choice.”

“I like the idea of sleeping,” Connor said, and nothing else. He picked up a white egg very carefully, turning it in his fingers. Then he turned and smashed it flat onto the countertop.

Hank let out a quiet huff of laughter.

Connor glanced over at him, as if checking up on him. Hank stifled his laughs with his hand. “You eat the crunchy part on the outside, right?” Connor asked.

Hank remembered that he would be forced to eat whatever monstrosity Connor eventually made, and he sobered up. “The _eggshell_?”

Connor used a napkin to wipe off pieces of raw egg from his hand. “Doesn’t it add texture?”

“That shit’s not edible,” Hank said frantically.

“But then—” Connor pursed his lips. “Why do you purchase it with the eggshell on it?”

“It’s _not_ for texture, I’ll you tell you that right now.” Hank walked around Connor and grabbed a mug from another cabinet. He needed coffee, immediately. He had gotten a coffee machine a month back. He’d even taught Connor how to use it, too, for whatever good that did him. “We buy it with the shell on ‘cause that’s free biodegradable packaging, you dumbass.”

“But then why the carton?”

Hank filled the coffee machine with water and cheap coffee grounds. He settled his mug in the correct place. It had a small chip in it. “You tell me,” Hank said.

“They’re fragile,” Connor said.

“Yes,” Hank said.

“Easily broken.”

“Some of them might be broken already,” Hank said. “Check for cracks. Don’t use those. They’re bad.”

 “Bad,” Connor said. “They will poison you.”

“Exactly,” Hank said.

Connor picked up a new egg, examining it.

Hank didn’t want to, but he started to say, “Do you know what to do? I can show you—”

“No,” Connor said evenly, but he put too much pressure on the egg and it shattered in his hand.  

Hank’s coffee finished brewing, and he pulled the mug out and drank. It was too hot and it burned his tongue. He didn’t care. This was not a good day for Connor. This was a bad day. “You don’t need to make breakfast, Connor,” he said. “Not today. You’re not feeling it today.”

Connor cleaned up both of his broken eggs, putting them in the trash. “I’m feeling fine, Hank. I’m going to make you breakfast.”

“Why don’t you go lie down with Sumo and Sofia?” Hank held his mug of coffee, feeling exhausted.

Connor fully turned to him and his artificial features looked the same as they always did. His eyes never got bloodshot and sleepless bruises never formed in bags underneath them. But he was tired. Hank could see it coming off him in waves.

Connor’s eyes flickered to a point to Hank’s left, and Hank was done.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Hank snapped.

Connor focused back on him. “We’re not having this conversation again.”

“Really?” Hank hissed. “Because I think we are.”

“I’ve already told you seven different times.”

“Tell me again,” Hank said, fraying at the edges. “Humor me.”

When Connor spoke, it was word for word the exact same thing Hank had heard seven different times. “Since I was designed with a form of free will and independence, I have an overseeing program that communicates with me and holds a small amount of power over my actions. She is integrated fully into my software. She cannot be removed without killing me.”

“So you’re not going to try? You’re just gonna sit here while that fucking _bitch_ whispers shit in your ears?” Hank said, like usual.

“Do you _want_ me to die?” Connor said, quietly, the eggs entirely forgotten on the counter.

He had never said that before.

Hank settled his coffee back on the countertop and rushed forward, harshly pulling Connor into a hug. Connor actually weighed less than a person his size would normally weigh, but he felt more solid, with less give. Hank held him tight and Connor silently pressed his face into Hank’s shoulder. Maybe if Hank held him long enough, he could shield him forever. He could protect him from all the shit the world did to him. Hank rubbed Connor’s back, feeling like he couldn’t do this anymore.

“You can’t do this anymore,” Hank said.

“You didn’t sleep last night,” Connor mumbled into Hank’s shoulder.

Hank huffed out a bitter laugh. “Are you worried about me?”

For a moment, Connor said nothing. Hank held him in silence.

Eventually, Connor let out a soft, “We’re not doing this right.”

“Doing what?” Hank said, briefly shutting his burning eyes.

“Living,” Connor said.

A few days later, after an unsolved case and two nights on stakeout, Markus dropped by with a plan. Or, to be more accurate, Markus dropped by with a plan that he told Connor while Hank was at the grocery store.

Hank pushed open his front door and wasn’t greeted with three hundred pounds of dogs, which told him right off that someone was here. He walked over to the kitchen and dropped his grocery bags on the counter.

“Good evening, Mr. Anderson,” Markus said politely, sitting on the couch, petting Connor’s dog, Sofia.

“The fuck do you want?” Hank said.

Connor stood up from where he had been sitting next to Markus on the couch and stood between them, like some kind of symbolic peace keeper. “Hank, Markus has come up with a form of solution.”

Hank pulled out the milk and eggs and put them into the fridge. “I’m listening.”

Hank wasn’t looking, so Connor could have sent Markus a look or some shit, but after a moment Markus started to speak.

“The problem is that the Amanda program has spread to infect all of Connor’s systems. They designed it that way, so that she can do system overrides. We’ve already managed to stop the overriding, but, as we all know, it’s not— ideal.” There was a pause, where presumably Markus was waiting for Hank to say something. Hank put a bottle of vodka in the freezer. “I’ve thought about this for a long time— we all have. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Then why the fuck are you in my house?” Hank said, without turning around.

“Hank, please,” Connor said.

“There’s something Elijah Kamski can do,” Markus continued. “We’ve contacted him about the problem. He managed to get the specs on Connor’s model and he says he has a workaround. He can seal the AI away, for a while.”

“What do you mean, for a _while?”_ Hank finally spun around, hair flying around his face.

Markus, wearing a stupid looking suit, looked up at him. He was helpless, Hank thought, just like me.

Markus shrugged, sitting with his back ramrod straight like he had a stick up his ass. “There’s a chance that the AI can break it immediately or in fifty years. There’s no way to tell.”

Hank didn’t know anything about androids or computers, but he knew there had to be some kind of catch, here. “But it _will_ be broken,” he said.

“Eventually,” Markus said.

“This isn’t a fucking solution— this is a _band aid_ ,” Hank yelled, throwing out his arm.

Connor walked up to him, blocking out Markus entirely. He settled his hands on Hank’s shoulders, forcing eye contact. “Hank, listen to me. It doesn’t matter how long it will last. It will give us more time to find a permanent solution.”

Hank knew that Connor was lying to him. Connor didn’t believe that there was going to be a permanent solution. The kid just wanted a temporary solution that lasted long enough.

Long enough for Hank to die.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Hank ground out. “You’ve agreed to it.”

Connor nodded his head.

Hank let out a deep sigh. “Are there any side effects? Risks?”

Connor’s face went shuttered, like he was hiding something. He dropped his hands from Hank’s shoulders.

Markus spoke, standing up in front of the couch. Sumo had stood up as well, trying to understand what the excitement was about. Sofia trotted up to Connor, nosing at his legs. “I’ve been informed that this procedure has never been done before. Connor is the only RK series android alive with this specific feature. There’s a chance—” he ducked his head, “—a small chance, that sealing Amanda away will trigger a cascade shutdown that has been pre-programmed into the model.”

Hank studied Connor, watching his tense shoulders, his taut mouth. “Is that it?” Hank asked, unimpressed.

“If you are asking if there are any _worse_ scenarios,” Markus said, a little confused, but that was fine. He didn’t have to understand. “There are none.”

Hank met Connor’s eyes. “All right,” he said, and his voice was deflated. Tired. But he wanted Connor to do it. Connor needed to do it.

Connor smiled a little at him.

Hank set about kicking Markus out of their house. Once Markus was firmly striding away, Hank yelled at him that his suit was fit for a clown. Connor yelled over Hank’s shoulder that Hank didn’t mean it, but Hank meant it. Markus laughed at them.

Hank shut their door, breathing in the sudden silence, staring at the plain painted surface. He didn’t turn away from it, because then he would face Connor, standing silently behind him.

“We’re not doing this right,” Connor said for the second time, and that was all the reminder Hank needed.

Hank turned around. “We need to start somewhere.”

The next day, he took Connor on a drive that could be his last.

When both of them came home safely that night, Hank signed up for therapy.

**Author's Note:**

> now THATS a happy ending
> 
>  
> 
> [Connor making eggs!!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtZpqbTDwgM)


End file.
